Links:

Link to Day 1, Day 2 Link , Day 3 Link, Day 4 Link & Link to Day 5

For those who followed my previous crazy journey’s, here’s the post the Friday before I started this one, which puts it in the context of this blog as a whole: Christian Influence Peddling.

Welcome Back

Welcome to Saturday. I’ll try to give a fast update of yesterday and lay out plans for next week. Last week I gave details on my research and thinking for the health initiative portion of this journey. As promised, I’ll cap that off today with the diet & exercise plan I’m committing to the for the rest of this 63 days. Then I’ll intro my topic for week 2.

Quick Recap

I’m a writer (fiction/non-fiction/copy) who’s turning 50 in June. I’ve been journaling for a few years, but my attempts to blog come in fits and spurts. Personal blog that is, professionally I manage a blog for a car inspection service with joy and ease. Since I’ve got a huge Spring ahead of me, with turning 50, remodeling a house, expanding my writing business to include entrepreneur & life purpose coaching I’ve decided to move a large part of my journaling online.

My hopes for this is two fold:
First that my readers can glean some tips on how to handle these seasons in their life. If nothing else you’ll learn some things not to do.
Second just writing what I did, what worked and what didn’t, will keep me accountable. (I once read that people dieting were more successful simply by keeping a food journal. This is sort of that, only for my entire life for one season.)
Bonus Hope: If this is at all successful I’ll turn this blog into a resource for people I coach.

Note: The thinking behind journeys is this. When facing busy seasons in life, we need to impose some routine on life, and be flexible other places. We need to decide what our life is about, that authentic to us, and not lose site of that while taking on those big projects of crazy seasons that happen to all of us in life.

Why 63 days?

Because of a book by Dr. Leaf that recommends taking 63 days to change a habit. 21 to move the habit from short term memory where it takes active effort to do it, 21 one to move it through mid-term memory and 21 to make it stick in long term. Some of the changes I’m making are simply projects that will get done by hook or by crook, but some of these are changes I’m making to my lifestyle.

Change happens in life in two ways. Most of the time it’s thrust upon us and we must recover from it. That takes a grieving process which I’ll be learning a lot more about when I start the Grief Recovery method in early March.

Sometimes change comes by force of will. We decide to alter our way of doing life in the hopes of changing life’s trajectory. There is a few thousand methods and theories around doing that from Alcoholics Anonymous to the Genesis Process. Studying change is a passion of mine and during this 63 days I’ll be taking a journey to put into action my theories on intentional change management.

Goal Recap

My goals/priorities this season–addressed in one project (One Big Thing), include
– Losing weight & getting younger, (soon auditioning new diet/exercise plans).
– Bed by 9:30 PM & getting up at 5 AM every weekday and spending time with God (which includes writing this blog).
– Launching the coaching arm of my writing/coaching business, and faithfully stewarding opportunities with my church.
– Remodeling a new home so that we can start living multi-generational with my mom.

Last Week

Last week was about what I expect from a big transition week one. Monday and Tuesday were pretty glorious. Wednesday was bumpy, Thursday was grumpy and Friday we pulled out a win, or win-like outcome.

I mentioned that my wife lost her keys, got our daughter to school late and ultimately found her keys at the new house. I’d fallen behind on some paid writing gigs and meant to catch up Friday morning but ended up doing a bunch of other stuff first including running Kristin to get her keys. What’s funny is that my wife loses things about once for every five times I do, but when she does it’s a whopper.

We started prepping and painting yesterday, and I remembered in the early afternoon that I CAN’T PAINT. I hate doing it AND it hates me back. I also couldn’t find my grungy cloths so I ended up getting pain on one of my favorite shirts. Don’t tell my wife but that probably won’t stop me from wearing it. LOL.

We made great progress though, thanks in large part to the fact that my wife is an amazing painter. She has a steady hand and doesn’t bother to tape things off. It’s crazy, but my wife is exceptionally good at nearly everything she tries to do. I think God had her marry me as a cosmic version of a golf handicap.

We also got some great news from sub-contractors yesterday and several aspects of the build are going to happen on time and on budget. But another big reason we got back on pace yesterday is that my buddy Jeff came over to help paint and knocked out the stairwell that we weren’t even going to be able to do, because my wife and I can’t be trusted on ladders. Gravity is a cruel mistress.

So from the clutches of disaster our project is on pace. Jeff is one of my inner circle, BTW. My team. I haven’t mentioned my team yet but I have 5 guys I’ve been doing life with for more than a decade. The last few years we’ve been getting on a zoom call every weekday at 7 AM to check-in and pray for each other. The weekend between announcing this journey on this blog and starting it we ran to coast for a two day retreat, just us guys. What’s amazing is that our wives. get along and tend to go to the beach together not long after we do.

On the health front, I should mention that I’ve been on a diet this week that isn’t the one I’m moving forward with. I had lost more than 25 lbs on Optivia in January 2020. It was successful and doable, but brutal. I’d try it again sometime if I could modify it some. I had some of the food left, which I kept in case I ever weighed over 300 lbs again and in phase one of this year I popped up to 302. So I ate the rest of what I call my punishment food. I actually have 3 “feedings” left to eat today. I jokingly call them feedings because I had to keep my heart light on that diet. (Lightheartedness is a key to losing weight no one talks about).

My Health Plan

After the giant posts explaining why I think the way I think when it comes to health, this will seem a bit short and simple. But simple is a key to any health change. Most of what makes a health change work is the stuff that doesn’t involve diet and exercise–it’s the mental game. Another key “commitment”–declaring you goal publicly and having friends and family on board to support you. You may even need to cut some people who wouldn’t support your goals out of your life temporally.

Another key is faith. We need to believe what we are trying for is attainable and attainable by us. We are going to succeed at trying even if it falls short of the goal or takes more effort than anticipated.

The final key planning. Here’s my plan:

Schedule is a big part of it. Going to bed and getting up at a consistent time is a key life success in every arena, because getting enough sleep is important brain function, attitude, self control, and eating schedule. There is a rhythm to life and we need to find our stride in that rhythm or lose creativity, focus, and self discipline.

I’m a fan of intermittent fasting and no matter what else you do, eating in a window (10 hours or less) will empower a diet. I’m committed to doing just that on weekdays.

I’ve also started Thrive by Level. I can talk more about that later but it’s basically a network marketing company that separates the water soluble vitamins into capsule 1st thing in the morning, then a probiotic shake for the fat soluble vitamins 20 minutes later. This prevents me from delaying any foods first thing in the morning like a true iFast. However, it works well with the five fueling theory in Optivia. So I will be using that as my first fueling from 5 AM to 5:30 AM each weekday.

BTW My weekend will vary mostly in schedule as I try to take Saturdays off from labor. I also allow myself a cheat meal on any diet so I’ll be doing that Friday or Saturday night.

Other fuelings consist of both broth, a food bar under 200 calories, a slice of cheese or jerky, avocado/apple/banana, or a protean smoothie. I will continue to drink coffee each day, but I ad collegian powder to it, and only flavor with half-n-half and monk fruit.

I’ll be very active during the construction phase on the house so I’ll be eating both lunch and dinner. My wife makes great dinners so I’ll just have to be vigilant for lunches. Both of those meals will be keto compliant. I’ve found that if I want to control carbs the key is fats to fight cravings and lots of fiber to cushion the carbs I do eat. So lots of salmon & avocado.

I like to increase protean but not by adding a lot of meat. I’m a fan of meat, but I have to try for more veggies (legumes), cheese, and eggs. My wife and I like to use a local butcher during diets since the quality of the meat we do eat is SO much better.

That’s most of it on the diet front. Clearly I’m counting on the house remodel for both activity and exertion. If I wasn’t getting that, or on days when I end up writing instead, I do a morning round of Ti Lo Han (a type of lunge and squat from martial arts) and push ups. Then I set alarms for each fueling during the 5 times a day, and I attach some sort of walking or push ups to that fueling.

That’s about it. If I forgot something I’ll add it as I go. If this isn’t working to take weight off I’ll pivot in week 3.